Brian Lamb has helmed C-SPAN’s “Q&A” and “Booknotes” programs, and in his new book, “Sundays at Eight,” he compiles some of his favorite sitdowns, from Christopher Hitchens to Malcolm Gladwell to Charles Krauthammer.

Lamb, who says he preps 10 to 20 hours a week for these hourlong interviews, tells POLITICO that “books still teach you more than anything” and loves that his job is, essentially, this: “I learn for a living.”

“We’re this unusual place that has the luxury of not ever having to worry about ratings,” said Lamb of C-SPAN. “I’m sure everyone has had the experience with television when you say to the screen, ‘Shut up! I want to hear the guest.’ And so we were able to do it that way just because of our financial structure, where we’re not rewarded by how many people watch and how many advertisers we sold eyeballs to.”

Lamb says that kind of television never appealed to him, professionally.

“Interviewers today make a tremendous amount of money. They have to be a star, and I’m not even be critical of them. They didn’t pay them a couple of million of dollars to go there and sit and look at the guest. … I was cheap. I wasn’t paid to do that. … The money wasn’t that important. I mean, I like to live comfortably, but it wouldn’t have mattered if someone paid me $4 million to work. I wouldn’t have switched to go into that kind of business, where it’s crazy every day and every rating point matters.”

Lamb says that all types of politicos make for good interviews, but he’s especially fond of historians.

“They actually take the time to go in-depth and to find unique stuff that we’ve never seen before, and so they usually bring to the table something that you can’t find anyplace else.”

Journalists aren’t bad, either, he says, unless “they’re conventional-wisdom journalists and just point out what everybody else is.”

Politicians can occasionally be a challenge.

“Most guests know so much about so much that — in particular if they’re politicians — that they often don’t tell you anything. … They want to go where they know the person asking the questions. They don’t want to take a chance. … They want to know what the ratings are. The fact that we don’t get ratings does hurt whether they’ll come or not. Politicians don’t want to spend an hour. They’ll go into a studio and spend seven minutes because they know they can get in and out.”

Lamb says he does watch his louder, interrupting counterparts from time to time and tries his best not to let it upset him.

“I also constantly remind myself that they’re there to make money. It sounds terribly cynical, but that’s what it’s all about. If you don’t make money, you’re dropped. … There’s no reason to get ticked off at some other network because they’re not doing it the way you think it ought to be done. It’s a waste of your time.”